]]>Mazda North American Operations has opted to enter three specially modified for racing 2014 Mazda6s in the longest endurance race in America, the National Auto Sport Association (NASA)’s US Air Force 25 Hours of Thunderhill.

Taking place on December 7 and 8, 2013, at the Thunderhill Raceway Park in Willows, Calif., the twice-around-the-clock-plus-an-hour race will pit two teams of Mazda dealers against one team of MNAO employees, along with nearly 80 other teams participating in the event.

“Mazda is a small company, but what has always stood us apart from our competition is that we are a car company full of real car people,” said Robert Davis, MNAO Senior Vice President, US Operations. “Given that we have less than 600 employees and about the same number of dealers around the country, we have a disproportionately large number of employees and dealers who have competition licenses and are real racers. These people spend their weekdays working with cars professionally, just to spend the weekend working with cars as their hobby. To finally put to bed the age-old question of who’s faster, dealers or factory guys, it’s finally time to cut the conversation and put everyone’s talent where their mouth is.”

The three Mazda teams will race brand-new 2014 Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel racecars. These are not the same SpeedSource cars that won the 2013 Grand-Am GX Manufacturers Championship, but are far-more production-based. Working on nights and weekends over the past three months, Mazda said an all-volunteer Mazda employee team transformed three brand-new European-specification Mazda6s into racecars ready to contest the event in NASA’s E1 class.

Mechanically, Mazda explained the cars remain nearly stock, but the interiors were removed to accommodate an Anthony Woodford Racing roll-cage, a Sparco Pro-ADV racing seat , Safecraft racing seatbelts and plumbed-in fire systems and AIM MXL Pista dashes and data acquisition. Under the skin, the SKYACTIV-D diesel engine (which will be fueled by Dynamic Fuels’ unique diesel blend) and six-speed manual SKYACTIV-MT transmission put their power to the ground through custom-designed ProParts USA suspension utilizing Koni dampers and Hypercoil springs, and custom ProParts rear stabilizer bars. Connecting all this to the track are 17×8” Enkei Kojin wheels wrapped in 245/40R-17 BFGoodrich g-Force R1 tires. When it comes time to slow down, the experts at StopTech delivered their four-piston STR-40 calipers and AeroRotors, backed by custom braided lines.